How to change a TextView's style at runtime

Question

I have an android app on which, when the user taps a TextView, I would like to apply a defined style.

I thought to find a textview.setStyle() but it doesn't exists. I tried

textview.setTextAppearance();

but it does not work.

I've read somewhere that this is not possible... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2016249/how-to-programmatically-setting-style-attribute-in-a-view . But you can set some properties separately. — Floern, Jan 07 '11 at 22:00
Did you try: textView.setTextTypeface? http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextView.html#setTypeface(android.graphics.Typeface) — Jonathan Roth, Jan 07 '11 at 22:54
@Falmarri Have YOU looked through the TextView api documents? If so, maybe you could say something more constructive. — Fletch, Jan 17 '12 at 15:32

score 144 · Accepted Answer · edited May 17 '16 at 12:12

I did this by creating a new XML file res/values/style.xml as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>

    <style name="boldText">
        <item name="android:textStyle">bold|italic</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">#FFFFFF</item>
    </style>

    <style name="normalText">
        <item name="android:textStyle">normal</item>
        <item name="android:textColor">#C0C0C0</item>
    </style>

</resources>

I also have an entries in my "strings.xml" file like this:

<color name="highlightedTextViewColor">#000088</color>
<color name="normalTextViewColor">#000044</color>

Then, in my code I created a ClickListener to trap the tap event on that TextView: EDIT: As from API 23 'setTextAppearance' is deprecated

    myTextView.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
                public void onClick(View view){
                    //highlight the TextView
                    //myTextView.setTextAppearance(getApplicationContext(), R.style.boldText);
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < 23) {
       myTextView.setTextAppearance(getApplicationContext(), R.style.boldText);
    } else {
       myTextView.setTextAppearance(R.style.boldText);
    }
     myTextView.setBackgroundResource(R.color.highlightedTextViewColor);
                }
            });

To change it back, you would use this:

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < 23) {
    myTextView.setTextAppearance(getApplicationContext(), R.style.normalText);
} else{
   myTextView.setTextAppearance(R.style.normalText);
}
myTextView.setBackgroundResource(R.color.normalTextViewColor);

Actually this doesnt work with shadow styles. If you would like to change the shadow you must do it this way: lockText.setShadowLayer(20, 4, 4, 0xFFFF0000); — Lukas, Apr 24 '13 at 15:07
To avoid the SDK checking you can use TextViewCompat.setTextAppearance(myTextView, R.style.myStyle); — Justin Fiedler, Sep 21 '16 at 17:13

score 91 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 03 '12 at 12:43

91

Like Jonathan suggested, using textView.setTextTypeface works, I just used it in an app a few seconds ago.

textView.setTypeface(null, Typeface.BOLD); // Typeface.NORMAL, Typeface.ITALIC etc.

edited Oct 03 '12 at 12:43

Alex Kucherenko

20,168
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answered Jan 20 '11 at 15:10

DKDiveDude

1,131
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9

You can use textView.setTypeface(null, Typeface.BOLD); textView..setTypeface(null, Typeface.ITALIC); textView.setTypeface(null, Typeface.BOLD_ITALIC); – peceps Jun 16 '11 at 08:32
2

textView.setTypeface(null, Typeface.BOLD) is what worked for me. Of course, you could use 1 instead but I guess it's not a good practice to enter constants manually. Better use predefined variables in libraries. – Pijusn Aug 13 '12 at 08:36
4

Don't encourage people to use ints instead of constants – Chris.Jenkins Sep 11 '12 at 16:00
3

Good one! My mistake was that I was sending my old typeface in first parameter. So it does work when I change NORMAL -> BOLD but not BOLD -> NORMAL. I didn't know the first parameter could be null! Now it works fine for me! – Felipe Dec 02 '12 at 01:39

score 12 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 13 '12 at 10:01

12

TextView tvCompany = (TextView)findViewById(R.layout.tvCompany);
tvCompany.setTypeface(null,Typeface.BOLD);

You an set it from code. Typeface

answered Mar 13 '12 at 10:01

Azhar

20,500
38
146
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score 2 · Answer 4 · answered May 17 '12 at 14:24

2

i found textView.setTypeface(Typeface.DEFAULT_BOLD); to be the simplest method.

answered May 17 '12 at 14:24

sfera

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This changes the Typeface. _not_ the style as specified by the OP. – HBG Jun 29 '17 at 14:53
True, still this was the simplest method - and as far as I recall the only method - at the time of the post. I'm not sure if a new API method was added in the meantime which enables changing the "style" to bold without altering the typeface. Please correct me if I'm wrong. – sfera Jun 30 '17 at 15:34

Md. Sajedul Karim · Answer 5 · 2016-03-30T15:46:25.327

1

try this line of code.

textview.setTypeface(textview.getTypeface(), Typeface.DEFAULT_BOLD);

here , it will get current Typeface from this textview and replace it using new Typeface. New typeface here is DEFAULT_BOLD but you can apply many more.

edited Mar 30 '16 at 15:46

answered Mar 30 '16 at 11:24

Md. Sajedul Karim

6,749
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The OP wants to change the style, _not_ the Typeface. – HBG Jun 29 '17 at 14:51

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 25 '14 at 09:52

0

Depending on which style you want to set, you have to use different methods. TextAppearance stuff has its own setter, TypeFace has its own setter, background has its own setter, etc.

answered Sep 25 '14 at 09:52

akohout

1,802
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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 08 '11 at 02:25

See doco for setText() in TextView http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextView.html

To style your strings, attach android.text.style.* objects to a SpannableString, or see the Available Resource Types documentation for an example of setting formatted text in the XML resource file.

How to change a TextView's style at runtime

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